Head banging prior to 12 months

Hey moms and dads. My 12 month old doesn't have an ASD diagnosis although he is being watched by EI for ASD and bipolar and he's a major sensory seeker. I didn't want to bother you all because I'm sure you get a lot of "help does my child have autism??" posts. This isn't one of those posts. I have autism myself and I'm sensitive to your challenges.

I researched about baby head banging (in my son's case on walls and hard floors) a few times and I couldn't find any information about this happening prior to one year. My son is 1 year old but he's been doing this consistently since he could roll (about 5 months).

Today MY therapist (not my son's) saw him doing this and I asked her about it. She primarily works with children with autism and children with trauma. She seemed to be taken aback by this when I told her it's the first thing he does every morning and does it several times a day. When I expressed concern she recommended a helmet for safety. In the past she recommended a helmet for me too but instead I replaced that behavior with standing on my head/pressing it into pillows.

Anyway, since this is kind of a common ASD behavior I thought this board might be helpful. If any of you have experienced this, what did you do about it? I'm not generally in favor of correcting stimming behaviors but in this case I'm worried about him hurting his head. Should I be worried? Should I let it be?

Again, I know this isn't necessarily a sign of autism and I'm certainly not "worried" if it is ASD or SPD, I just was hoping to find people who have had similar experiences with their infants and see what they did. Thanks!

Comments (16)

My son is not a head banger, but he does bite his hands. I do redirect because that is more than just a stim, it is self harming. We have found that if we ask him to take a "chewie" instead, he will. It has also reduced the behavior overall, which the therapist said it should do. I'm not actually exactly sure why. If you can't replace the head banging with something else, I would consider a helmet. Maybe he'll associate his behavior with having to put on the helmet and if he doesn't like the helmet, that will reduce it. GL!

My son banged his head into his crib while falling asleep and when he woke up. He would vocalize and rock, too. I thought everything he did was adorable and was in autism denial. I kept him in the pack n play with soft mesh sides. He never banged his head except when in bed.

My ds (dear son) was a head banger. This started around age 3, but really became a problem around age 8/9. He would bang it HARD. So hard that he gave himself huge bumps and bruises. I remember one night he slammed it repeatedly into the bannister and it took two of us to restrain him for his own safety. In his case it was a pain/frustration issue. At that age he began to have severe anxiety, which caused a lot of problems. Glad to say he rarely does this anymore since figuring out the root of the problem and addressing it. The school did order him a helmet though. That might be a good idea if he's doing it hard enough to give himself bruises.

Around a year old my DS (dear son) started head banging. Not out of frustration but in a sensory seeking way. He occasionally does it when he gets mad but for the most part it's still just a sensory thing. He's 3 now. I agree that a helmet is a good idea if he's hurting himself. And maybe give him a safe place to do it, like a bean bag chair. Redirect to that when he does it on hard surfaces.

Mine doesn't head bang, but he rocks furniture. Hard. We didn't redirect it much when he was little because it really did help him relax, and what was he hurting? (Except that I did want to slap that stupid psychologist who told us it was a discipline issue and to take our autism worries elsewhere, mutter mutter mutter.) However, turns out he was actually destroying the furniture ... we just couldn't see it, with the backs up against the wall of the house ... oops.

Not that we stop him, even now (he's 16 now), but we do redirect to less damageable furniture! I kind of wish we'd caught on sooner and found a replacement soothing chair or something when he was younger ... because even bungee chairs and such just don't provide the same feel for him. And with banging a head, I can't imagine what else would provide a similar feel without causing similar harm ... he ought to be allowed the stim, but without the hurt ... so I'm thinking the helmet sounds the way to go, if it guides him to find another choice of actions.

(And no, we don't really care about the lost furniture. Just wondering, now it's crossed my mind, if we could have helped him find a better stim. But he's the kid who actually BROKE a baby bouncy seat with his enthusiasm as an infant, so ... probably not ...)

I have one friend who swears that all head-bangers grow up to be great musicians. Her data set is admittedly very small, but there's that to hold on to ... definitely has possibilities for an innate sense of rhythm? (She's got a sky-high IQ and quite possibly some autistic tendencies herself, though I dare not point them out. Had a hard enough time getting her to back off when I got my ADD diagnosis and she didn't want to believe that was a thing. Sigh. At least she doesn't question my kids' issues, not in front of me. She's quite supportive of them, actually.) She herself was a head-banger from a very young age, her mother says. I got the impression from early toddlerhood, maybe even younger. I can ask if you want.

My son is a head banger too, he started around 9/10 months old. He is 2 next week and more often or not has now replaced the behaviour with hitting himself in the head which causes less damage than actually hitting his head against hard things like the walls and floor. It has also improved with age though. If he is doing it that often, I would definitely give him a helmet, we found it very hard to redirect the headbanging at that age.

We now have finger chewing which causes his fingers to get red and swollen so we have introduced a pacifier to redirect this as it's causing damage.

Mine doesn't head bang, but he rocks furniture. Hard. We didn't redir...

Posted
07/08/2018

Mine doesn't head bang, but he rocks furniture. Hard. We didn't redirect it much when he was little because it really did help him relax, and what was he hurting? (Except that I did want to slap that stupid psychologist who told us it was a discipline issue and to take our autism worries elsewhere, mutter mutter mutter.) However, turns out he was actually destroying the furniture ... we just couldn't see it, with the backs up against the wall of the house ... oops.

Not that we stop him, even now (he's 16 now), but we do redirect to less damageable furniture! I kind of wish we'd caught on sooner and found a replacement soothing chair or something when he was younger ... because even bungee chairs and such just don't provide the same feel for him. And with banging a head, I can't imagine what else would provide a similar feel without causing similar harm ... he ought to be allowed the stim, but without the hurt ... so I'm thinking the helmet sounds the way to go, if it guides him to find another choice of actions.

(And no, we don't really care about the lost furniture. Just wondering, now it's crossed my mind, if we could have helped him find a better stim. But he's the kid who actually BROKE a baby bouncy seat with his enthusiasm as an infant, so ... probably not ...)

I have one friend who swears that all head-bangers grow up to be great musicians. Her data set is admittedly very small, but there's that to hold on to ... definitely has possibilities for an innate sense of rhythm? (She's got a sky-high IQ and quite possibly some autistic tendencies herself, though I dare not point them out. Had a hard enough time getting her to back off when I got my ADD diagnosis and she didn't want to believe that was a thing. Sigh. At least she doesn't question my kids' issues, not in front of me. She's quite supportive of them, actually.) She herself was a head-banger from a very young age, her mother says. I got the impression from early toddlerhood, maybe even younger. I can ask if you want.

Thanks! I know an adult who was a shaken baby and he destroys furniture by rocking like that. His mom keeps buying expensive couches. I'd be shopping all the garage sales.

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